Hip-Hop duo Rizzle Kicks say their new album 'Competition is for Losers' is "the best music we've made together", as they mark their first album release for more than ten years. Jordan Stephens and Harley Alexander Sule have admitted that they were "victims of our own success", given the acclaim of their debut album 'Stereo Typical', but say there is now "less pressure" for chart-topping success. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00There wasn't really like a decision necessarily, we'd just been spending a lot of time together
00:05as friends, you know, for a long time, you know.
00:09We started out obviously as really close friends, then became, I guess, colleagues quite quickly.
00:14And then in the time, in the period where we weren't making music, we rekindled that
00:18friendship properly.
00:19And then naturally, like, we just started making music together, like very casually,
00:26to the point where, you know, when we were in the studio, we were thinking, oh, should
00:29we do this properly?
00:31And we said to ourselves, if it's not good, or if there's not a vibe there, we're not
00:37going to push it.
00:39But fortunately, it was some of the best music we've ever done.
00:42So it felt pretty clear to us that we should pursue it.
00:46And I think there was a lot of like, it felt like there was a, an appeal for it from the
00:51outside.
00:52It felt like a lot of people wanted us to do it.
00:56So yeah, it was quite an easy decision at that point.
00:59I guess it's definitely, well, now it's less pressure, which is nice, you know, I think
01:05we rose to our highest point of notoriety quite young, 19, 20, 21 years old.
01:11And even though we probably felt as though we were equipped to be able to deal with that
01:14kind of attention, we kind of weren't.
01:16And we were definitely victims of our own success, because our first album did so well,
01:21second album, there was a little more expectation, and I think that kind of had an effect on
01:25us.
01:26So this time round, we're more mature, our lives have shifted dramatically, our values
01:31have changed.
01:32And so the process, I think, was a lot calmer, more collaborative, open minded.
01:39And yeah, now we've made a good album.
01:41I think it's, for me, I think, and I'm pretty sure Jorn will say the same, it's the best
01:46music we've made together.
01:49The stuff we talk about, you know, the sounds we use, it's still got the same energy and
01:54a bit of the same vibe, but I think we're just older, better, more sure of ourselves,
02:00know exactly what we want to talk about, how we want to talk about it.
02:04Yeah, I'm really, really proud of this album.